A former mayor believes changing the zoning of Lyon's Package Store Plaza could be seen as spot zoning.

View full sizeThe Republican | Michael S. GordonThe owners of the Lyon's Package Store shopping plaza on Westfield Street in West Springfield are seeking a zoning change to allow more business uses.

WEST SPRINGFIELD — Owners of Lyon's Package Store Plaza on Westfield Street got an endorsement Thursday from the Planning Board to change the property’s neighorhood business zoning to a zoning designation that would allow for more flexibility.

The Planning Board recommended by a 4 to 1 vote that the Town Council approve changing the zoning at 1399-1425 Westfield Street to business A. The current designation allows small businesses, while the BA category would allow for such uses as drive-through restaurants and convenience stores.

Among the opponents to a zone change are former Mayor Edward J. Gibson and his wife, Sandra L. Gibson. The Gibsons, who live at 146 Woodmont St., argued that a zone change could bring more traffic into the area and erode the nature of the residential area around the parcel.

Mrs. Gibson said she does not want to see a large corporation take over the property.

“I don’t want to see Westfield Street in this area become another Riverdale Road,” Mrs. Gibson said, referring to Riverdale Street.

The former mayor said changing the zoning designation could amount to spot zoning because it would be done to benefit a specific parcel that is zoned differently from surrounding parcels.

Martin C. Lyons, a trustee of Lyons Family Trust, which owns the property, said it would be more appealing to more potential tenants if the zoning is changed.

Asked if he has a potential buyer who has made a sale contingent on a zone change, Lyons said responded in the negative. He did, however, say there is some potential for redevelopment.

Kathleen A. Lyons of 527 Rogers Ave. commented that the zone change would still leave the property’s use in keeping with the rest of the street, which has a traffic light nearby.

“I don’t a reason to deny something like this. Traffic flow seems to be good,” Town Councilor Angus M. Rushlow remarked.

Massachusetts Economic Development Director Gregory Bialecki, state Rep. Joseph Wagner and Chicopee Mayor Michael Bissonnette gathered with senior citizens and others to watch the beginning of the demolition of the former Facemate factory complex.

File photo by John Suchocki / The Republican This is one of the former Facemate buildings which has been razed to make way for a new Senior Center.

With construction workers ready to tear down the tower of a former Facemate building in Chicopee, state and local officials celebrated the start of a new era of the former industrial property off the Chicopee River.

Massachusetts Economic Development Director Gregory Bialecki, State Rep. Joseph F. Wagner, Mayor Michael D. Bissonnette gathered with senior citizens and others to watch the beginning of the demolition of the former Facemate factory complex. Once completed, a new senior center will be built in its place on the West Main Street site.

“Behind us are the remenants of an earlier era of manufacturing,” Bissonnette told the crowd. “Once these buildings are gone a bright new building will be in its place.”

The property has a long history. The Chicopee Manufacturing Company, built around 1830, is believed to have been the third major water-powered industrial site in the state, Stephen R. Jendrysik, a retired history teacher and the city’s historian, said.

The property was always used for textiles. The first developer, Johnathan Dwight, sold it to Johnson & Johnson in 1915, which made bandages during the war and later switched to making cloth diapers. The Facemate corporation purchased it in the 1970s and made collar stays until it closed a decade ago.

A demolition firm has removed asbestos from the five Facemate buildings. Even before the gathering Thursday, some demolition had begun.

Wagner and Bialecki talked about how the project to clean and reuse the land became a joint effort between the city, and federal and state organizations. The cleanup is being funded with state and federal grants.

The demolition work is expected to total about $2 million while the construction of the senior center is estimated at $6 to $8 million and will be funded with city money, federal grants and the Friends of the Senior Center pledged to raise $2 million. A contractor should be hired sometime this summer to build the center.

Photo by Diane Lederman / The RepublicanMassachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Gregory Bialecki, left, listens as Micheal Michon explains his vision for the rear of the mill buildings on Pleasant Street in Easthampton. At right is state Rep. Joseph F. Wagner, D-Chicopee. Bialecki and Wagner and others toured projects in Chicopee, Holyoke and here on Thursday. Michon owns the 180 Pleasant St. building.

Bialecki said he has been working with Wagner, chairman of the House Committee on Economic Development and others to find the best way to help older cities to find uses for old mill buildings.

He said the committees are selecting the most promising projects and focusing on them one at a time.

“It is a good model on how we are going to do this in the future,” he said about the Chicopee project.

Thursday Bialecki also made stops in Holyoke and Easthampton to view potential projects there.

In Easthampton, Bialecki met with with several mill building owners to find out more about their plans to place entrances to their buildings along the Manhan Rail Trail. The new entrances would also feature more parking, landscaping and lighting.

The buildings are in various stages of development and are being used for housing, retail, restaurants, arts spaces and other businesses.

Michael Michon, owner of Mill 180 on Pleasant St., Will Bundy, owner of Eastworks Mill and James Witmer, owner of the Brickyard, said they want to connect their their buildings.

After meeting, Michon took Bialecki, Wagner and Easthampton Mayor Michael A. Tautznik on a tour of the trail and explained how they want to clean up the area.

“If we’re going to make a public investment, (we want to know) is there going to be a private investment?” Bialecki said. “These are not a couple of dreamers.”

Staff writer Diane Lederman contributed to this report.

Forensic evidence in the case may be reexamined to help develop new leads to find the killer.

The Republican | Mark M. Murray02.07.2012 | AGAWAM - A framed photo of Lisa Ziegert sits along with a collection of angel statues on a bookcase at her parents' home.

REMEMBERING LISA
Here are some upcoming events to celebrate the life of Lisa Ziegert.
April 12: 2 p.m., Rebecca G. Doering School, 68 Main St., Agawam, dedication of tree planting
April 14: 2 p.m., Agawam Public Library, "Lisa's Corner," story time for younger children
April 15: 11 a.m., In back of Agawam Public Library, celebration, open to friends and public to share thoughts and memories, rain or shine

No suspect has ever been identified. Never caught. Never punished. Yet.

On April 15 two decades will have passed since someone took 24-year-old Lisa Ziegert from her job at a gift shop in Agawam, then raped and killed the aspiring teacher with a vicious stabbing to the neck. She was left in the woods, her body found four days later on Easter Sunday 1992.

To this day, family and friends live with the horror of Lisa’s death and the memories of the joy she exuded in life.

“You have two choices when something like this happens,” says her mother, Diane “Dee” Ziegert. “You either let it take over your life and destroy you, and so they win twice. Or, you can live your life as best as you can, although it is not the same.”

For the Ziegert family, faith has been crucial in enduring the past 20 years without answers; “I don’t know how people go through this who do not have belief. I know she’s safe,” Dee Ziegert said recently.

Family and friends want the perpetrator caught and punished. So, too, do investigators who were first called to Brittany’s Card and Gift Shoppe on Walnut Street Extension in Agawam on the morning of April 16, 1992. A shop employee had arrived for work to find the store unlocked and Lisa’s car still in the parking lot; she had been working the night before.

Agawam Police Chief Robert D. Campbell can recite the facts of the case as if it happened a week ago; back then, he was the head of his department’s detective bureau and toiled with about 30 investigators, including some from the FBI, to track leads in finding Lisa Ziegert’s killer.

“I’ve lived this since 1992,” he said. “There were so many leads.”

“If you saw the files on this thing, you would measure it in pounds not pages,” Campbell said. “The twists and the turns, the ups and the downs this investigation has taken, it’s a case that’s never far from everyone’s mind. There’s not a cop here who wouldn’t want to see this solved.”

State Police Capt. Peter J. Higgins agrees; he, too, was there when it happened and now heads the detective unit assigned to the Hampden district attorney’s office. All unsolved homicide cases are important, but Ziegert’s death touched a particular nerve among investigators and the community at large, according to Higgins.

“In the public eye, they equate it with a brother, a daughter, a sister, working in a business like this somewhere in this area. That’s why they related to how tragic this was,” Higgins said.

District Attorney Mark G. Mastroianni, like his predecessor, William M. Bennett, is dedicated to solving the case. Mastroianni and Higgins recently met with the Ziegerts, and the district attorney’s office has identified the case as one which has some forensic evidence that could be reexamined or reevaluated.

The Ziegerts are committed to helping investigators in any way they can. Parents Dee and George Ziegert have not changed their telephone number in two decades, even when they moved from one house to another in Agawam. They don’t want to take any chance someone might get in touch with them with an important lead.

The 1993 NBC episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” – which includes a 9-minute segment on Lisa Ziegert’s killing – is still rebroadcast on TV occasionally, and their telephone number is included.

The family’s hope for resolution is still tinged with some anger: “When you think of these 20 years that this person has got to live free. They’re able to go on with their lives, but it’s OK to take someone else’s,” George Ziegert said recently.

Dee Ziegert believes Mastroianni to be “a very dedicated man who is very much into forensics and science and the modern way of going with solving it, because science has progressed so much.”

Will new testing of evidence bring new hope for a resolution, she is asked.

“We’d love to get our hopes up. We’ve been on the roller coaster for almost 20 years,” she said. “You expected it to be solved in the beginning. There was so much. There was actually two scenes, and there was forensic evidence, things that could be collected.”

George Ziegert said he feels many victim’s families have a fear the killer will be found but not convicted because “the police didn’t dot an ‘I’ or cross a ‘T.’” In his daughter’s case, he believes investigators “will be ultra-careful.”

The family has dealt with potential suspects in the past, only to have hopes for resolution dashed. “We needed (hope); the only thing that got you out of that terrible horrible thing (is that) the hope got you going, along with your family that you had to be there for,” Dee Ziegert said.

At the time of her death, Lisa, a graduate of Westfield State University, worked days as a teaching assistant at Agawam Middle School and on nights and weekends at the card shop, where she enjoyed being with people. She lived in an apartment on Belton Court in Agawam with a longtime girlfriend.

The Republican | Mark M. Murray02.07.2012 | AGAWAM - Lisa Ziegert's parents, Diane and George Ziegert.

“She was such a good person,” her mother remembers. “She loved people. Why would someone want to hurt her like that?”

Elder sister, Lynne, was 25 at the time. She may have been among the last people to see Lisa alive, having stopped at the store to chat at about 7 p.m. on the night of her disappearance.

“She was fine. She was in a fine mood. She was talking about school,” Lynne Ziegert Rogerson remembers. “My God the kids (at her school) adored her.”

There was never any worry about Lisa working at the store, according to her sister. “There was nothing about that area that made me uneasy,” she said.

Only 15 months apart in age, Lynne and Lisa Ziegert were always close, companionably growing up in the same bedroom of the family homestead where Rogerson now lives with her own family.

Their brother, David Ziegert, was 21 at the time and in California, where he still lives with his wife and three sons.

Their younger sister, Sharon, was a 17-year-old high-school senior. She now lives in eastern Massachusetts with her husband and two children.

Lisa’s missed each of her siblings’ weddings, but the family works now to ensure the latest generation of the Ziegert family knows who she was.

“They know Auntie Lisa is in heaven, that Auntie Lisa looks out for them,” Dee Ziegert says of her grandchildren. “We’ve been blessed with good friends and wonderful family and a lot of support that kept Lisa alive, and that’s a beautiful thing.”

Submitted photoHOW TO HELP
Anyone with information about the abduction and death of Lisa Ziegert in 1992 should contact Massachusetts State Police.
Call: (413) 505-5933
Text-a-Tip: Text 274637, start with the word "solve" and write the tip

Dee Ziegert was 48 when her middle daughter was killed. She made a decision early on to become the public face for Lisa in hopes it would help the case get solved.

Testaments to Lisa – photographs and teddy bears – abound in the family home and at places across Agawam where balloons have been released in her memory, where there have been vigils and where events are still held to raise funds for a memorial which bears Lisa’s name.

A $10,000 donation helped install an 18-foot mural by artist Ted C. Esselstyn in the children’s area in the Agawam Public Library. Musical instruments, computers, software for the visually impaired, scholarships and other items have been donated to city schools.

Some $75,000 raised in golf tournaments and other fund-raisers in Lisa’s memory has been distributed, according to George Ziegert.

At the time of her sister’s death, Lynne Ziegert Rogerson was still single, living in a house off River Road in Agawam with some good friends from high school. Lisa began dating one of the men in the house so the sisters were very much in each other’s life.

Rogerson can remember the call she received at her job at Hamilton Sundstrand from a friend and co-worker of Lisa’s at the card shop, inquiring if she had seen Lisa that morning so long ago. The family rushed to the store, she said, but they were not allowed inside. They returned to the family home where police began questioning them.

Later, maps were spread out on a big table in the dining room as searches began by family friends.

“A bunch of the guys got together, and they split the maps and they all went out looking,” said Rogerson. She worked “to stay strong for my folks” and worried about the effects on her younger sister, she added.

“My mom obsessively cleaned that whole time,” Rogerson said. “I think she washed the kitchen floor a half dozen times at least in those couple of days to stay busy.”

On that Easter Sunday, now-retired Agawam detective Wayne K. Macey came to the home to deliver the news of discovery of Lisa’s body.

Rogerson said she and her parents wanted to know everything, all the details with nothing held back. “I wanted to know,” she said. “It was not because I was looking to have some gruesome picture in my head. The not knowing, or the guessing, or the speculating, was worse than knowing the truth.”

She can recall being obsessed about what the police may not have been telling her, Rogerson said, and she obsessed about whether Lisa’s killer was someone known to the family. She’s never considered it was an arbitrary killing.

“It is someone we all know; it is someone she met through the store. Was there a stalker that she had?” Rogerson said.

Lisa’s wake, held over two days, was testament to the support of friends and the community, but it was also exhausting. “I hate the smell of lilies now,” Rogerson says. “I call them the death flower. That’s what I associate with the smell of lilies now, Lisa’s wake.”

She opted not to view her sister in death; “I preferred older memories than one I couldn’t get rid of. There was damage. She’d been out in the elements. I just couldn’t do it.”

For a while Rogerson would visit her sister’s grave and sit alone, wailing. That pain has eased.

“I think that people, in general, believe tragedies like that destroy a family. That’s one thing that never happened,” Rogerson said. “I think we had such a solid family and solid friendships and support through the whole thing.”

Kim Souders-Murray and Lisa Ziegert had been fast friends since a sixth-grade reading class, where they both were reprimanded for kicking the boy who sat between them.

Souders-Murray, now an educator herself, was living in Framingham when her friend went missing. Alerted by a family member, she hit the Massachusetts Turnpike immediately for the trip to Agawam. She can remember praying her friend would be found alive and worrying about little things, like whether Lisa had her contact lens solution with her.

The two had visited together in the card store a week before Ziegert disappeared, and Souders-Murray recalls her friend sharing that she felt like she was being watched. Generally, though, Lisa was “so happy,” Souders-Murray said.

Her friend’s killing changed her life, Souders-Murray said. “I felt unsafe for years,” she said. She distanced herself from her male friends; “I went to ground,” she said.

To this day, Souders-Murray said, she’s not so good at friendships. “I lost my best friend,” she said. “I really miss the girl she was. I miss the woman she would have become. Whoever did this needs to be in jail for the rest of their life.”

The Ziegerts have not been alone in their journey over the past twenty years, helped in many ways by people who have been through the same, or similar, grief.

Nancy Larson, whose 19-year-old son, Danny Larson, was killed in Holyoke on Feb. 10, 1991, is now a good friend. Two men received life sentences for killing her son.

Magi and John Bish, parents of Molly Bish, are “just wonderful,” according to George and Dee Ziegert. They’ve also befriended Holly Piirainen’s grandmother.

“It’s a club you don’t want to get into, but you appreciate the people who are in it. When they say, ‘I understand,’ they understand,” Dee Ziegert said.

Molly Bish, 16, disappeared June 28, 2000, from her lifeguard post at Comins Pond in Warren. Her remains were identified in June 2003; no one has been charged in the killing.

Piirainen, 10, of Grafton, was abducted from Sturbridge, while visiting her grandmother on Aug. 5, 1993. Her body was found in Brimfield on Oct. 23 of that year.

Piirainen’s case returned to the headlines earlier this year when Mastroianni announced his office had submitted material for forensic testing. The new testing provided a viable lead, which is being followed.

What would it mean for the Ziegerts to have the person who killed their daughter captured and convicted?

George and Dee Ziegert respond almost simultaneously, “Justice for Lisa. And, for our other kids, so they know.”

“It would be such a statement,” Dee Ziegert said. “I don’t care how long it is; we won’t give up and we will get you. Law enforcement won’t give up, the DA’s office won’t give up and we, as a family, will not stop.”

Joseph Knapp and Joseph Knight are seeking one open seat on the Planning Board in Monday's annual election.

Gregory A. Harder and Gerald Matta, clockwise from top, left, are seeking two seats on the Ware Board of Selectmen currently held by William R. Braman and Nancy J. Talbot who are seeking reelection.

WARE - Board of Selectmen Chairwoman Nancy J. Talbot and Selectmen Vice-Chairman William R. Braman are competing against former board members Gerald L. Matta and Gregory A. Harder in Monday's annual town election to hold onto their positions.

There are two, three-year terms available on the Board of Selectmen. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Town Hall on Main Street.

Talbot, 64, of 22 Doane Road, has been on the board for six years. She also serves as town clerk, a position she has held for 10 years.

The lifelong resident said she enjoys being a selectman because she wants to "make a difference in my community." She said she believes the town is moving in a positive direction, and noted some of the changes that have taken place in recent years, such as the addition of a strong town manager and town planner.

"I think we've made Ware a good place to live," Talbot said.

Braman, 69, of 27 Old Poor Farm Road, has been on the board for three years.

Braman said he wants to continue the work that the board started as "there is still a lot to do."

"We are working with less funding year after year as state aid has gone down . . . The challenges are still there," Braman said.

Braman, a consultant in the property casualty insurance industry, said he believes a lot of positive changes have taken place, naming the downtown revitalization effort as one.

Matta, 70, of 397 Palmer Road, was ousted from the board in 2009; Braman and Talbot were elected. Matta previously served for nearly 13 years. He also ran unsuccessfully in 2010.

Matta said he is running "because there are two selectmen, in my opinion, who influence a third, and they know they've got their three votes to do their exorbitant spending . . . I don't think they should be reelected."

"The town is being sold down the river," Matta said. "It's time to tighten our belts."

Matta said he disagrees with hiring an executive assistant to the town manager, and also disagreed with the approximately $16,000 study for town hall repairs. Matta said the town manager should not need any assistance because he "is getting paid so much." New town manager Stuart B. Beckley makes approximately $90,000.

Harder, 60, of 160 Upper Church St., said he has not been happy with the way Town Hall is operating, saying too many upper management jobs with high salaries attached are being filled in the midst of a budget crisis.

"They just keep heading down that road and people are not happy. For some reason, the Board of Selectmen and the town manager are not getting that message," Harder said. "I think they've lost track of this being a small community. We're under 10,000 people. It seems like they feel we're more of a city that has a lot of money."

Harder, who is retired from the Air Force, works as a maintenance foreman at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

He left the board in 2006, choosing not to seek reelection. In 2005, he won election to the year remaining in the term of former selectman James Kubinski, who passed away. Harder also was on the board from 2000 to 2003.

Talbot said there also is a contest for Planning Board, as incumbent Joseph S. Knapp, of 99 East St., is being challenged by Joseph C. Knight, of 187 Babcock Tavern Road.

For School Committee, there are two, three-year positions available, but only candidate will be on the ballot, incumbent Danielle Souza, of 5 Crescent Terrace. Talbot said she has not heard of anyone waging a write-in campaign for the position.

There also is a vacancy for a five-year Housing Authority position. Madeline Cebula chose not to run again, and no one took out papers for the post, Talbot said.

Braman hopes that residents will vote on Monday.

"We need a good turnout," Braman said.

In all more than $12 million will be spent on school repairs and upgrades citywide.

WESTFIELD – The state’s School Building Authority is expected to provide up to 62 percent reimbursement for roof replacements at the city’s two newest elementary schools.

If approved, Paper Mill and Munger Hill schools, both opened in 1991, will bring the total of Westfield school roof projects funded by the state to five by next spring.

The state has provided the city with 62 percent reimbursement for roofs at Southampton Road and Highland Avenue schools, both completed last summer, and the soon to start project at Westfield Vocational-Technical High School. In all the cost for roof replacements in the city is about $8.4 million to date.

School Operations Director Frank B. Maher Jr. this week estimated the cost of Paper Mill and Munger Hill schools at $1.6 to $1.8 million combined.

SBA last week notified the School Department to submit both schools for submit proposals for inclusion of the two schools in its accelerated repair program.

SBA recently reimbursed the city about $4,000 for emergency roof repairs at Munger Hill School which was damaged when a 20-foot section of steel roofing was ripped from the building during the June 1 tornado.

“That is when we discovered a problem with roofs at Munger Hill and Paper Mill,” Maher said this week. “An inspection of the roofs, both 20 years old, revealed an algae problem that is eating away the rubber membrane under the roof,” he said.

New roofs for both buildings will be made of a PVC, plastic type substance, Maher said.

Maher estimated roof replacements at the two schools will happen next spring because of other projects already underway here.

A new roof will be installed at the vocational high school shortly, including new boilers and windows at the Smith Avenue facility.

Also, contracts for new boilers at Southampton Road, Highland and Paper Mill schools and Westfield High School are be awarded for work to be completed by October 15.

Overall, school projects will cost about $12 million, all subject to 62 percent state reimbursement.

The producer edited a broadcast recording of the call to police the night Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin.

NEW YORK (AP) — NBC News has fired a producer for editing a recording of George Zimmerman's call to police the night he shot Trayvon Martin, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.

The person was not authorized to talk about the situation publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The identity of the producer was not disclosed.

An NBC spokeswoman declined to comment.

The producer's dismissal followed an internal investigation that led to NBC apologizing for having aired the misleading audio.

NBC's "Today" show first aired the edited version of Zimmerman's call on March 27. The recording viewers heard was trimmed to suggest that Zimmerman volunteered to police, with no prompting, that Martin was black: "This guy looks like he's up to no good. He looks black."

But the portion of the tape that was deleted had the 911 dispatcher asking Zimmerman if the person who had raised his suspicion was "black, white or Hispanic," to which Zimmerman responded, "He looks black."

Later that night of Feb. 26, the 17-year-old Martin was fatally shot by Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla. Though Martin was unarmed, Zimmerman told police he fired in self-defense after Martin attacked him.

Questions subsequently have arisen over whether Zimmerman was racially profiling the teen, a theory the edited version of the tape seemed to support.

On Tuesday, NBC said its investigation turned up "an error made in the production process that we deeply regret." It promised that "necessary steps" would be taken "to prevent this from happening in the future" and apologized to viewers.

DA Mark Mastroianni said he believed a woman called police for help because Douglas Musto was trying to break her door down.

Law enforcement officials said Westfield police shot at man at 128 Elm st. Saturday morning after he stabbed an officer as police tried to arrest him for breaking into the apartment of his ex-wife.

Updates a story posted Saturday at 9:03 a.m.

WESTFIELD — Hampden County District Attorney Mark G. Mastroianni said that early reports on the fatal shooting of an out-of-control suspect who stabbed a police officer early Saturday morning indicate that officers used considerable restraint before several shots were fired on the man.

Douglas Musto, age and hometown unknown, advanced on an officer who responded to an 911 call from Musto's ex-wife at 128 Elm St., Apt. 11, in the middle of the night. A strike from the officer's stun gun only hobbled Musto temporarily, according to Mastroianni. Musto continued to advance on the injured officer in a stairwell of the large apartment building when a back-up officer arrived and shot him.

The injured officer's name has not been released, nor was the name of the officer who shot Musto.

Mastroianni said an extensive review will follow the fatal shooting, including ballistics and forensics tests, plus an autopsy will be conducted by medical examiners in Boston, which could take months alone.

Mastroianni said he believed the woman lived there alone and had called police for help because Musto was trying to break her door down.

"The officer engaged (Musto) in the hallway. The officer was trying to control the guy and de-escalate him while trying to find out what happened. The guy did not respond to verbal commands. A Taser was fired, which worked momentarily but it didn't stop the guy. He just kept coming ... A second officer who responded fired several shots," Mastroianni said.

Mastroianni said only one of the officer's weapons was fired.

He said Musto had some kind of criminal record, but Mastroianni wasn't aware of the details. He did not believe the couple had been the source of chronic domestic calls to police.

Westfield Police Capt. Michael A. McCabe said the officer who was stabbed was taken to Baystate Medical Center, where he was treated and released.

SCENE OF THE SHOOTING
The map below shows the location police responded to early Saturday.

Republican file photo

A second officer came up the stairwell and fired several shots on Musto, according to Hampden County District Attorney Mark G. Mastroianni, who said the knife Musto was wielding was a large, retractable model.

Law enforcement officials said Westfield police shot a man at 128 Elm st. Saturday morning after he stabbed an officer as police responded to a call that he was trying to break into the apartment of his ex-wife.

WESTFIELD - A police officer fatally shot an out-of-control man who stabbed another patrolman even after the man had been struck by a taser, according to Police Capt. Michael A. McCabe.

Douglas Musto, 28, hometown unknown, was shot in the hallway of an apartment building at 128 Elm St. early Saturday morning after Musto's ex-wife called police for help because Musto was attempting to break her door down at about 2 a.m., according to a 911 call from a woman who lived in Apt. 11.

One officer responded initially and tried to place Musto in handcuffs, although the man was not being placed under arrest, McCabe said.

"He told the officer he wasn't going to be arrested, and the officer told him he wasn't under arrest. He wasn't responding to the officer's commands. He pulled out a knife. He was tasered, then lunged at the officer. There was some grappling, and somewhere in there the officer was stabbed," McCabe said.

A second officer came up the stairwell and fired several shots at Musto, according to Hampden District Attorney Mark G. Mastroianni, who said the knife Musto was wielding was a large, retractable model.

Musto died of his injuries, according to McCabe.

The shooting is being investigated by the district attorney's office.

Little is known about the couple's history; McCabe said the woman lived there alone and he believed Musto lived in another community. No children were at the apartment, officials said.

No one answered the door at the woman's apartment on Saturday evening. Long, vertical cracks in the wooden door were visible where Musto apparently tried to force his way in.

While crime scene tape was long gone on the second floor of the two-story apartment building perched atop downtown retail stores, the sterile smell of bleach permeated the hallways.

"They were just finishing mopping up when I got home around noon. I wasn't home last night, thankfully. My bedroom is right there," next-door neighbor Joshua Miranda said, gesturing to a corner of the hallway outside his unit where Musto was shot.

A still-damp mop was propped nearby. Miranda said the building is typically peaceful and well-kept, filled mostly with college students. He said most residents keep to themselves and he did not know the woman in Apt. 11. She is believed to be in her early 20s.

Neither the officer who was wounded or the officer who shot Musto has been identified. The wounded officer was stabbed in the leg, and was treated and released at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield. Mastroianni said he believed the officer suffered a fairly serious slash wound.

The officer who shot Musto was not placed on administrative leave.

"It seems to be pretty straight-forward," said McCabe. "There's not a whole lot you can do in that situation, with an armed suspect who is not responding to commands and who has already injured a police officer,"

Both officers have been offered counseling, McCabe said. They were both seasoned members of the police force, he added.

"Domestic violence calls are among the scariest calls we go out on," McCabe said. "The situation may seem to have an underlying calm and then quickly become explosive."

Mastroianni said there are extensive ballistics and forensics tests ahead in the case, as well as awaiting the results of Musto's autopsy from a Boston medical examiner, which could take months.

He said while the district attorney's office must go through those exercises before coming to a conclusion, his initial impression is that Westfield police handled the situation properly.

"How much more can you ask of a cop, except to gradually step up the use of force. They only escalated when it was required. It seems to be to be a textbook handling of a situation like that," Mastroianni said.

SCENE OF THE SHOOTING
The map below shows the location police responded to early Saturday.

Peter Krasnor, 57, of Chicopee, died Friday, according to the high school principal. An exact cause of death is not known.

The Republican/Dave RobackPeter R. Krasnor, left, an athletic trainer, tapes up the ankle of Rhyan Belisle in the training room of South Hadley High School in this file photo from 2005.

SOUTH HADLEY – Athletic trainer Peter R. Krasnor was remembered on Saturday for his dedication to the job and his rapport with student athletes.

Krasnor, 57, of Chicopee, died Friday, according to the high school principal. An exact cause of death is not known.

“He had a huge impact on our kids. It’s a huge loss for us,” South Hadley High School Principal Sean McNiff said. “It’s pretty shocking. He was in tremendous shape. I’m not sure what happened.”

The high school library will be open to grieving students throughout the day on Monday, and counselors will be available for all students, McNiff wrote in an email sent to parents.

McNiff said Krasnor is “irreplaceable” and said students felt comfortable going to him with their injuries or concerns. An athletic trainer is present at athletic events to deal with injured students. The trainer gives the okay for students to play after they suffer an injury; he may opt to refer them to a doctor instead.

Athletic Director Tad D. Desautels worked with Krasnor for several years. Krasnor worked for South Hadley part-time, then left to work for Chicopee High School, before he returned to South Hadley High School, where he spent the past four years. He first started working in South Hadley seven years ago.

“There are a lot of great things you can say about him,” Desautels said. “He was very, very passionate about his work, about the South Hadley High School athletes and the community in general.”

Desautels said he had a great relationship with the students, which says “a lot about the person who he was.” He said Krasnor always erred on the side of caution, and would not agree to playing an athlete if he had any concerns.

Desautels said Krasnor took care of his elderly mother, and also had a 22-year-old daughter. In his younger years, he said Krasnor was a bodybuilder.

He said South Hadley has been lucky to have a full-time athletic trainer, especially with the new concussion law that requires middle and high schools to keep track of the number of head injuries, including concussions, and report them to the state Department of Public Health. The law requires annual training for parents, athletes and staff, and athletes must be removed from a game or practice if a concussion is suspected. They are not allowed to return to play without written medical authorization.

“The kids trusted him. I think they trusted him because he was honest with them,” Desautels said.

Desautels said he just saw Krasnor at a softball game on Wednesday. He said that Krasnor was complaining of not feeling well on Thursday.

Raymond S. Ferro, the retired long-time high school football coach, said Krasnor was “probably the most renowned athletic trainer in the area.” Ferro said other athletic trainers would call Krasnor with questions.

“That showed me we had the right guy. The best guy,” Ferro said.

Ferro said the students saw Krasnor as a father figure, and he had a special connection with them.

“This shows us how fragile life is,” Ferro said about Krasnor’s passing.

The students organized a candlelight vigil Saturday night at 6 to remember Krasnor.

Krasnor told The Republican in 2005 that a sports injury he got in the 1970s while playing football for Classical High School inspired him to become an athletic trainer. He had hurt his knee and had to have an operation.

Krasnor told The Republican that he saw anywhere from 20 to 25 students a day, and that the students would have questions on everything from blisters to broken bones.

He held a master’s degree in sports medicine from Springfield College. He also previously held positions at Cathedral High School in Springfield and Longmeadow High School.

Obituaries from The Republican.

Daniel Hamre

Daniel E. "Dan" Hamre, 56, of Springfield, died on Monday. He was born in Springfield and was a 1973 graduate of Cathedral High School. He later graduated from Springfield Technical Community College. Hamre served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. He worked for the City of Springfield as a firefighter for 31 years, and retired as a lieutenant. A communicant of the former Our Lady of Hope Church and Holy Name Church, he was a member of the American Legion Post #430 and served as the Sitting Dept. Vice Commander, Post Commander and Past County Commander. He served on the Springfield Veteran's Committee and numerous state and national committees, and was a member and former High Chief Ranger of the Catholic Association of Foresters, the John Boyle O'Reilly Club and the Springfield Lodge of Elks #61.

Obituaries from The Republican:

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  Anderson, Joyce Elaine (Mitchell)
  



• 
  Askew Sr., Benjamin J. "Benny"
  



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  Bick, Esther S.
  



• 
  Branchini, Anastacia "Stacia"
  



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  Budnik, Thaddeus J.
  



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  Cipriani, Christopher J.
  



• 
  Eriksen, Nils
  



• 
  Gould III, Ralph L.
  



• 
  Grise, Phyllis P.
  



• 
  Johnson Jr., Vernon Ray
  



• 
  Juzba, Jerry D.
  



• 
  LaPorte, Delano H.
  



• 
  Lucia, Vivian J. (Burgess)
  



• 
  Magiera, Eugene J. "Gene"
  



• 
  Marcotte, Shirley B. (Boynton)
  



• 
  Mason, Philip Michael
  



• 
  McManus-Handler, Patricia (Corbiere)
  



• 
  Schoolcraft, John A.
  



• 
  Sicotte, Joseph A.
  

Douglas Morse allegedly drove the get-away car used in the March 24 bank robbery in Longmeadow.

Douglas Morse

HOLYOKE – Police arrested Douglas Morse, the older brother of the mayor, on a warrant Saturday night in connection with the March 24 robbery of the Berkshire Bank branch in Longmeadow.

Sgt. John P. Hart said Morse, 32, was a passenger in a car that was stopped by the department’s gang suppression unit at Jackson and South Canal streets about 7:30 p.m.

Hart said Morse, who is homeless, is being held on $25,000 bail. He is expected to be arraigned Monday in Springfield District Court. A woman in the car was charged with possession of narcotics; her name was not immediately available.

Morse is the older brother of Holyoke Mayor Alex B. Morse.

Longmeadow police obtained the arrest warrant for Morse, who allegedly drove the get-away vehicle used in the bank robbery. Desiree Ferreira, 19, of Elm Street, Westfield, was charged with unarmed robbery and receiving stolen property. She went to the Longmeadow Police Department on April 2 after learning police wanted to speak with her about the robbery. Ferreira denied the charges at her arraignment April 3.

The Holyoke mayor released a statement previously acknowledging his brother’s addiction troubles.

“As I have previously stated, my brother Doug has struggled with addiction his entire adult life,“ Mayor Alex Morse said in his statement. “I know that good people can do bad things when overtaken by substance abuse. I will continue to be there for my brother, but I also recognize that his actions are out of my control.”

It was the second time in less than a month that Morse, a first-time mayor only months into his term, issued a similar statement about his brother.

The first time was after Douglas Morse’s arrest on drug charges March 5 in Northampton. He was charged after police stopped him for driving through a stop sign and nearly hitting a police cruiser. He was charged with possession of heroin, for having four empty wax bags containing heroin residue, possession of suboxone, a narcotic medication available only by prescription, of which he had one and a half pills, three doses of muscle relaxant cyclobenzaprine, which is available only by prescription, and driving with a suspended license.

He denied the charges at his arraignment in Northampton District Court and was released on his own recognizance and ordered to appear in court April 25.

Reader Raves is different from other “Best of” polls because the questions are all open-ended and all of the votes are write-in ballots. People are not asked to choose from a multiple choice list that someone else has put together.

SPRINGFIELD - Rave on.

Reader Raves, the new promotion by The Republican and MassLive.com that asks readers to declare their favorites in a wide variety of categories, is starting to pick up steam one week into its launch.

Mark French, advertising director for The Republican, MassLive and El Pueblo Latino, said so far thousands of people have checked out the promotion and several hundred have actually submitted votes.

“Considering we just launched the promotion, this is a pretty good start,” French said. “I would like to see a minimum of 3,000 total votes by the end of the month, but I think 5,000 isn’t totally unrealistic.”

The voting concludes April 29.

To vote, go online to: www.readerraves.com.

The promotion asks people to declare their favorites from across the broad categories of News, Business, Entertainment, Pioneer Valley Life and Sports.

Reader Raves is different from other “Best of” polls because the questions are all open-ended and all of the votes are write-in ballots. People are not asked to choose from a multiple choice list that someone else has put together.

Indeed, there is no list.

If you want to vote for “Benny the Bucket Man,” as someone did, in the in the category of Best Street Musician, then no one is stopping you.

Incidentally, Benny the Bucket Man is in a neck-and-neck pitched battle with “Steel Drum Guy, Northampton,” “Joe Minuge,” “Hamp Jazz Guy” and “none.” Through midday Friday, each had one vote, and one gets the feeling that this one could go down to the wire.

The open-answer format does add an element of “anything goes” whimsy in some places.

In the category of Best Place to Propose, the responses include the usual romantic haunts like Forest Park, Skinner Mountain or the Quabbin Tower. But there’s also a few wildcards, like “anywhere,” or “in person, LOL” and “Bondi’s Island.”

Bondi’s Island actually got two votes.

The answers cannot be tracked back to the individual respondents, so any claim that the votes for Springfield’s legendary sewage treatment plant were cast by people waiting their turn in divorce court would be completely unsubstantiated.

Reader Raves has the usual leaders in the usual categories. For example, the Holyoke St. Patrick’s Road Race is ahead of the pack in the best road race, and The Big E kicks butt as the best fair.

There are still some surprises though.

For example, in the area of favorite television personality, there could be an upset in the making.

Carrie Saldo, the host of WGBY 57’s nightly “Connecting Point” program, is leading long-time abc40 - FOX 6 anchor Dave Madsen, by 14 - 11. Saldo is also running laps around “any of the Jackies on Channel 22.”

Madsen has been anchoring the local news longer than the the entire careers of most people in television. Most people in television this side of Ray Hershel, anyway.

Saldo’s “Connecting Point” has only been on the air since January of last year.

Saldo, contacted Friday by The Republican, resisted any “David v. Goliath” or “Little Engine that Could” analogies, Instead she opted for a diplomatic approach.

“I’m proud to be mentioned in the same poll as perennial favorite Dave Madson, and I wish him luck along with the others,” she said.

She added the voting so far “is a clear reflction of the quality of WGBY’s programming and the dedication that our entire production staff puts into each and every show.”

French, The Republican Executive Editor Wayne Phaneuf and marketing director Maureen Sullivan are scheduled to appear on “Connecting Point” in a segment scheduled for broadcast at 7:30 p.m.

Their appearance is part of the Reader Raves promotion in the valley media. In the interest of full diclosure, they were booked for the program before anyone looked at the voter tallies for best TV personality and before Saldo was approached for an interview.

French and Cynthia Simison, The Republican managing editor, are also due to appear on WHYN FM Monday at 8 a.m.

Reader Raves is intended to be a twice-yearly promotion.

This round will focus primarily on activities popular in the summer and fall, such as best summer camps and best ice cream spots.

Round 2 is planned for September and will focus on activities reflecting the change of seasons.

Reader Raves follows the success of two recent Valley Food Championships promotions by The Republican and MassLive.com in which readers nominated their favorite pizza shops and burger joints; a panel of three judges from The Republican determined the winners.

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Proposition 2½ limits the amount the tax levy can go up each year

Question:The Town of Ludlow recently announced an 8.2 percent property tax increase.

What happened to Proposition 2½?

– Anonymous,
Ludlow

Answer: Proposition 2½ limits the amount the tax levy can go up each year, Ludlow Selectmen Chairman Aaron Saunders said. He said the town has been under the levy limit in the amount of taxes it collects for a number of years.

This year the tax rate was raised to bring the amount of taxes collected closer to the levy limit to fund the budget approved by the voters at last spring’s annual Town Meeting.

The tax rate goes up when property values decline, Saunders said.

He said the average homeowner in town received an increase of about 6 percent on his or her property tax bill.

Most town employees have had zero percent wage increases over the last few years, Saunders said.

Saunders said a deficit in the snow removal account for last year and increases in the cost of providing health insurance for town employees is responsible for some of the increase.

Susan Leschine, a UMass microbiologist whose research was the basis for the formation of Qteros, said the company’s problems are more financial than technological.

Susan B. Leschine, of Leverett, who was chief scientist at Qteros, when this picture was taken is seen with William A. Frey, of Belchertown, former president and CEO of the Hadley biotechnology company, in 2008 in the photo above. The photo below, taken last week, shows the now shuttered Chicopee facility.

Qteros, a once promising biofuels company that had its origins in research done at University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has closed its Chicopee fermentation facility, part of an apparent retrenchment.

In November, it was reported by the Boston Business Journal that Qteros, which has its home office in Marlborough, replaced its chief executive officer and laid off many of its employees.

Susan B. Leschine, a UMass microbiologist whose research was the basis for the formation of Qteros, said the company’s problems are more financial than technological.

“The company has made significant advancement in the technology, but there are always these issues of continuing the flow of investment funds,” she said.

Leschine, who has remained at UMass and is not involved in the day-to-day business of Qteros, said she believes Qteros has pulled back as it considers options.

Listed in 2010 by Biofuels Digest as number 21 among the 50 hottest companies in bioenergy, Qteros based its process on a microbe found in the early 1990s in the soils around Quabbin Reservoir.

Dubbed the “Q microbe,” it proved to be highly efficient in converting plant materials into ethanol and was expected to dramatically lower costs for ethanol producers.

Leschine initially identified the microbe’s unusual abilities.

The company, which began in Amherst as SunEthanol in 2007, raised a reported $52 million in investment funds as it progressed, including money from Soros Fund Management LLC, Valero Energy Corporation and BP AE Ventures.

Its 15,000-square-foot plant in Chicopee, which was anticipated to open in mid-2011, was intended to be a demonstration fermentation facility for the company’s process.

Qteros officials did not reply to repeated attempts in recent days to contact them by phone or email.

The offices at the Chicopee facility at 150 Padgette Street were empty and locked Wednesday, and the telephone number for the plant is out of service. One individual with business ties to the building, which houses several other companies, said Qteros’ offices were vacated more than a few weeks ago.

A spokesman for the company managing the building, Development Associates of Agawam, would not comment on the status of the lease or on the status of Qteros there. However, he said more information about the tenancy at the address should be available in the next month.

Allan W. Blair, the president of the Economic Development Council of Western Massachusetts, said, “It’s unfortunate that the startup was unable to get the traction in the marketplace to move to the next stage of growth.”

Qteros, which employed about 50 people at its height, planned to license its process to ethanol producers. However, there were many other companies developing similar technologies and the competition for limited investment funds was fierce.

In January 2011, Qteros announced a partnership with Praj Industries of India, one of the world’s leading builders of ethanol plants. At the time, Praj officials said they hoped to retrofit existing plants with equipment to use Qteros’ process.

A spokesman for Praj Industries did not return an email or call this week seeking a comment on the status of its relationship or plans with Qteros.

In a statement to the Boston Business Journal in November, the new chief executive officer at Qteros, Mick Sawka, said, “The company is continuing to develop the Q Microbe platform with Praj in India as well as at our facilities in Marlborough.”

There will still be discounts for families with more than one child participating in sports, and families can still apply for hardship waivers.

GRANBY – It’s probably going to cost a little more to play sports at Granby Junior-Senior High School next year.

Principal Peter Dufresne recommended to the School Committee this week that athletic fees for student participation in sports be raised from $100 per sport to $135.

There will still be discounts for families with more than one child participating in sports, said Dufresne, and families can still apply for hardship waivers.

Dufresne spoke as schools struggle to create budgets for next year in fiscally tight times.

He said the increase, which has been discussed before, compares well to other schools. According to Dufresne, Amherst Regional charges up to $160 per sport on a sliding scale, Palmer charges $200 per sport and Ludlow charges $145 per sport.

“We are still on the low end,” said Dufresne.

He said this year athletic fees brought in $28,900. With an increase of $35, that would go up to $39,050.

The increase would be made with the understanding that all revenue generated by it would go to the athletic budget, said Dufresne. Due to “level funding” in the past few years, such items as equipment and uniforms have not been replaced.

This year 10 families benefited from the discounts for families with more than one child in the system. People with two children playing sports get a 10 percent discount, three get a 20 percent discount, on up to a 40 percent discount for a family with five children playing sports.

In Dufresne’s list of neighboring towns, which does not include big cities, only Southwick and Belchertown still charge $100 per sport, and Hampshire Regional High School charges $90.

Elsewhere, Northampton charges $150 for the first sport, $120 for a second sport, and $90 for the third.

Longmeadow charges $150 to $350, depending on the sport. At Minnechaug in Wilbraham, the fee is between $170 and $190 for most sports, and $350 for hockey.

CBS newsman Mike Wallace, whose 60-year career was highlighted by on-air confrontations, helped make "60 Minutes" the most successful prime-time television news program ever.

View full sizeAP File PhotoThis May 8, 2006 photo shows Mike Wallace, longtime CBS "60 Minutes" correspondent, during an interview at his office in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

Frazier Moore
AP Television Writer

NEW YORK — CBS newsman Mike Wallace, the dogged, merciless reporter and interviewer who took on politicians, celebrities and other public figures in a 60-year career highlighted by the on-air confrontations that helped make "60 Minutes" the most successful prime-time television news program ever, has died. He was 93.

Wallace died Saturday night, CBS spokesman Kevin Tedesco said. On CBS' "Face the Nation," host Bob Schieffer said Wallace died at a care facility in New Haven, Conn., where he had lived in recent years.

Until he was slowed by heart surgery as he neared his 90th birthday in 2008, Wallace continued making news, doing "60 Minutes" interviews with such subjects as Jack Kevorkian and Roger Clemens. He had promised to still do occasional reports when he announced his retirement as a regular correspondent in March 2006.

Wallace said then that he had long vowed to retire "when my toes turn up" and "they're just beginning to curl a trifle. ... It's become apparent to me that my eyes and ears, among other appurtenances, aren't quite what they used to be."

Among his later contributions, after bowing out as a regular, was a May 2007 profile of GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, and an interview with Kevorkian, the assisted suicide doctor released from prison in June 2007 who died June 3, 2011, at age 83.

In December 2007, Wallace landed the first interview with Clemens after the star pitcher was implicated in the Mitchell report on performance enhancing drugs in baseball. The interview, in which Clemens maintained his innocence, was broadcast in early January 2008.

Wallace was the first man hired when late CBS news producer Don Hewitt put together the staff of "60 Minutes" at its inception in 1968. The show wasn't a hit at first, but it worked its way up to the top 10 in the 1977-78 season and remained there, season after season, with Wallace as one of its mainstays. Among other things, it proved there could be big profits in TV journalism.

The top 10 streak was broken in 2001, in part due to the onset of huge-drawing rated reality shows. But "60 Minutes" remained in the top 25 in recent years, ranking 15th in viewers in the 2010-11 season.

The show pioneered the use of "ambush interviews," with reporter and camera crew corralling alleged wrongdoers in parking lots, hallways, wherever a comment — or at least a stricken expression — might be harvested from someone dodging the reporters' phone calls.

Such tactics were phased out over time — Wallace said they provided drama but not much good information.

And his style never was all about surprise, anyway. Wallace was a master of the skeptical follow-up question, coaxing his prey with a "forgive me, but ..." or a simple, "come on." He was known as one who did his homework, spending hours preparing for interviews, and alongside the exposes, "60 Minutes" featured insightful talks with celebrities and world leaders.

He was equally tough on public and private behavior. In 1973, with the Watergate scandal growing, he sat with top Nixon aide John Ehrlichman and read a long list of alleged crimes, from money laundering to obstructing justice. "All of this, Wallace noted, "by the law and order administration of Richard Nixon."

The surly Ehrlichman could only respond: "Is there a question in there somewhere?"

In the early 1990s, Wallace reduced Barbra Streisand to tears as he scolded her for being "totally self-absorbed" when she was young and mocked her decades of psychoanalysis. "What is it she is trying to find out that takes 20 years?" Wallace said he wondered.

"I'm a slow learner," Streisand told him.

His late colleague Harry Reasoner once said, "There is one thing that Mike can do better than anybody else: With an angelic smile, he can ask a question that would get anyone else smashed in the face."

Wallace said he didn't think he had an unfair advantage over his interview subjects: "The person I'm interviewing has not been subpoenaed. He's in charge of himself, and he lives with his subject matter every day. All I'm armed with is research."

Wallace himself became a dramatic character in several projects, from the stage version of "Frost/Nixon," when he was played by Stephen Rowe, to the 1999 film "The Insider," based in part on a 1995 "60 Minutes" story about tobacco industry whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand, who accused Brown & Williamson of intentionally adding nicotine to cigarettes. Christopher Plummer starred as Wallace and Russell Crowe as Wigand. Wallace was unhappy with the film, in which he was portrayed as caving to pressure to kill a story about Wigand.

Operating on a tip, The New York Times reported that "60 Minutes" planned to excise Wigand's interview from its tobacco expose. CBS said Wigand had signed a nondisclosure agreement with his former company, and the network feared that by airing what he had to say, "60 Minutes" could be sued along with him.

The day the Times story appeared, Wallace downplayed the gutted story as "a momentary setback." He soon sharpened his tone. Leading into the revised report when it aired, he made no bones that "we cannot broadcast what critical information about tobacco, addiction and public health (Wigand) might be able to offer." Then, in a "personal note," he told viewers that he and his "60 Minutes" colleagues were "dismayed that the management at CBS had seen fit to give in to perceived threats of legal action."

The full report eventually was broadcast.

View full sizeAP File PhotoThis 1968 photo released by CBS shows "60 Minutes" correspondents Harry Reasoner, left, and Mike Wallace, right, with creator and producer Don Hewitt on the set in New York. (AP Photo/CBS Photo Archive)

Wallace maintained a hectic pace after CBS waived its long-standing rule requiring broadcasters to retire at 65. In early 1999, at age 80, he added another line to his resume by appearing on the network's spinoff, "60 Minutes II." (A similar concession was granted Wallace's longtime colleague, Don Hewitt, who in 2004, at age 81, relinquished his reins as executive producer; he died in 2009.)

Wallace amassed 21 Emmy awards during his career, as well as five DuPont-Columbia journalism and five Peabody awards.

In all, his television career spanned six decades, much of it spent at CBS. In 1949, he appeared as Myron Wallace in a show called "Majority Rules." In the early 1950s, he was an announcer and game show host for programs such as "What's in a Word?" He also found time to act in a 1954 Broadway play, "Reclining Figure," directed by Abe Burrows.

In the mid-1950s came his smoke-wreathed "Night Beat," a series of one-on-one interviews with everyone from an elderly Frank Lloyd Wright to a young Henry Kissinger that began on local TV in New York and then appeared on the ABC network. It was the show that first brought Wallace fame as a hard-boiled interviewer, a "Mike Malice" who rarely gave his subjects any slack.

Wrote Coronet magazine in 1957: "Wallace's interrogation had the intensity of a third degree, often the candor of a psychoanalytic session. Nothing like it had ever been known on TV. ... To Wallace, no guest is sacred, and he frankly dotes on controversy."

Sample "Night Beat" exchange, with colorful restaurateur Toots Shor. Wallace: "Toots, why do people call you a slob?" Shor: "Me? Jiminy crickets, they 'musta' been talking about Jackie Gleason."

In those days, Wallace said, "interviews by and large were virtual minuets. ... Nobody dogged, nobody pushed." He said that was why "Night Beat" ''got attention that hadn't been given to interview broadcasts before."

It was also around then that Wallace did a bit as a TV newsman in the 1957 Hollywood drama "A Face in the Crowd," which starred Andy Griffith as a small-town Southerner who becomes a political phenomenon through his folksy television appearances. Two years later, Wallace helped create "The Hate That Hate Produced," a highly charged program about the Nation of Islam that helped make a national celebrity out of Malcolm X and was later criticized as biased and inflammatory.

After holding a variety of other news and entertainment jobs, including serving as advertising pitchman for a cigarette brand, Wallace became a full-time newsman for CBS in 1963.

He said it was the death of his 19-year-old son, Peter, in an accident in 1962 that made him decide to stick to serious journalism from then on. (Another son, Chris, followed his father and became a broadcast journalist, most recently as a Fox News Channel anchor.)

Wallace had a short stint reporting from Vietnam, and took a sock in the jaw while covering the tumultuous 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. But he didn't fit the stereotype of the Eastern liberal journalist. He was a close friend of the Reagans and was once offered the job of Richard Nixon's press secretary. He called his politics moderate.

One "Night Beat" interview resulted in a libel suit, filed by a police official angry over remarks about him by mobster Mickey Cohen. Wallace said ABC settled the lawsuit for $44,000, and called it the only time money had been paid to a plaintiff in a suit in which he was involved.

The most publicized lawsuit against him was by retired Gen. William C. Westmoreland, who sought $120 million for a 1982 "CBS Reports" documentary, "The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception." Westmoreland dropped the libel suit in February 1985 after a long trial. Lawyers for each side later said legal costs of the suit totaled $12 million, of which $9 million was paid by CBS.

Wallace once said the case brought on depression that put him in the hospital for more than a week. "Imagine sitting day after day in the courtroom hearing yourself called every vile name imaginable," he said.

In 1996, he appeared before the Senate's Special Committee on Aging to urge more federal funds for depression research, saying that he had felt "lower, lower, lower than a snake's belly" but had recovered through psychiatry and antidepressant drugs. He later disclosed that he once tried to commit suicide during that dark period. Wallace, columnist Art Buchwald and author William Styron were friends who commiserated often enough about depression to call themselves "The Blues Brothers," according to a 2011 memoir by Styron's daughter, Alexandra.

Wallace called his 1984 book, written with Gary Paul Gates, "Close Encounters." He described it as "one mostly lucky man's encounters with growing up professionally."

In 2005, he brought out his memoir, "Between You and Me."

Among those interviewing him about the book was son Chris, for "Fox News Sunday." His son asked: Does he understand why people feel a disaffection from the mainstream media?

"They think they're wide-eyed commies. Liberals," the elder Wallace replied, a notion he dismissed as "damned foolishness."

Wallace was born Myron Wallace on May 9, 1918, in Brookline, Mass. He began his news career in Chicago in the 1940s, first as radio news writer for the Chicago Sun and then as reporter for WMAQ. He started at CBS in 1951.

He was married four times. In 1986, he wed Mary Yates Wallace, the widow of his close friend and colleague, Ted Yates, who had died in 1967. Besides his wife, Wallace is survived by his son, Chris, a stepdaughter, Pauline Dora, and stepson Eames Yates.

His wife declined to comment Sunday.

___

Associated Press writer Deepti Hajela, former Associated Press writer Polly Anderson and National Writer Hillel Italie contributed to this report.

The public school is being managed by a Northampton firm under state orders.

File photo | The RepublicanHolyoke Mayor Alex B. Morse will be cochairman of the Dean Tech Futures Advisory Committee.

HOLYOKE – A 35-member committee of officials and business people formed to help Dean Technical High School will begin meeting Tuesday.

The Dean Tech Futures Advisory Committee will meet 6 to 8 p.m. at the school, 1045 Main St.

Mayor Alex B. Morse and School Superintendent David L. Dupont will be cochairmen of the committee.

The committee will analyze Dean, the city’s vocational school, as well as local workforce information and recommend ways to help Dean help businesses meet their employee needs, a press release said.

“The committee will also serve as a bridge between the school, community organizations, and employers,” the press release said.

William Symonds, director of the Pathways to Prosperity Project at Harvard University Graduate School of Education, will speak at 6:30 p.m.

Symonds will discuss the role of a technical education in the development of a skilled and prosperous nation, the press release said.

Others on the committee are state Sen. Michael R. Knapik, R-Westfield, state Rep. Michael F. Kane, D-Holyoke, Holyoke Community College President William F. Messner, and Kathleen G. Anderson, incoming president of the Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce.

The press release was from the Collaborative for Educational Services, of Northampton, a public non-profit agency hired to manage Dean.

The state ordered the city to hire such a manager because of Dean students’ chronically poor test results. Federal and other grants are paying the agency $606,520.

Fusco is accused of a litany of organized-crime conspiracies, including the 2003 murders of regional mob boss Adolfo 'Big Al' Bruno and associate Gary D. Westerman.

Republican file photoEmilio Fusco is shown in this arrest photo after he was extradited from Italy to stand trial for murder.

NEW YORK – Lawyers for Emilio Fusco – a convicted loan shark from Longmeadow soon to stand trial in federal court in Manhattan for two organized-crime murders – have long denied his ties to the Mafia.

Prosecutors contend, though, that Fusco was recruited in the early 1990s for the Western Massachusetts faction of the Genovese crime family by onetime capo Albert “Baba” Scibelli, who died in February from Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 91. Fusco began building his stock in the rackets here as a driver for Scibelli, according to recent filings U.S. District Court in New York City, where faces trial beginning next week.

Fusco is accused of a litany of organized-crime conspiracies, including the 2003 murders of regional mob boss Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno and low-level associate Gary D. Westerman, narcotics trafficking and extorting bar and business owners. He has denied any involvement in the plots, much of which was documented in last year’s trial of three other defendants in the same court.

The prosecution contends Fusco fled to his native Sorrento, Italy, in the spring of 2010, days after law enforcement officials began digging for Westerman’s remains in a wooded lot in Agawam on the advice of newly-minted informant Anthony J. Arillotta. Fusco was arrested in August of that year in the small Italian village where, his lawyers have argued, he had traveled on family business, not to avoid prosecution.

Fusco could face 20 years to life in prison if convicted on racketeering and racketeering conspiracy charges that include the murder allegations. He is accused of lobbying mobsters in New York and Springfield to kill Bruno, and also charged with helping to shoot and bludgeon Westerman to death.

Heading to trial, federal prosecutors have filed motions to introduce a web of evidence against Fusco that details his beginnings in the “Springfield crew” of New York’s Genovese crime family.

“Fusco was ‘made’ into the Genovese Crime Family in approximately the late 1990s in Springfield. Albert Scibelli sponsored Fusco for membership and the ceremony was attended by Scibelli, Felix Tranghese, Anthony Delevo, a member of the Genovese Crime Family who replaced Albert Scibelli as capo and head of the Genovese operations in Springfield, and Anthony Torino, another Genovese soldier based in Springfield,” one motion reads.

The history of organized crime in Greater Springfield has become dense with death and betrayal over the past decade. While Torino died in 2000 and Delevo died in prison in 2005, Tranghese and Arillotta turned government witness over the course of the Bruno prosecution. Mob watchdogs here and in New York contend the organized-crime structure in this region has essentially crumbled as a result.

Tranghese and Arillotta were two of the government’s star witnesses against brothers Fotios “Freddy” and Ty Geas, two of Arillotta’s onetime enforcers from West Springfield, and the former acting boss of the Genovese family, Arthur “Artie” Nigro, all of whom were tried and convicted in March 2011 for the same murders. The three men are serving life prison terms.

Tranghese and Arillotta are expected to deliver similar, damning testimony against Fusco during his trial to outline the tensions that grew among Fusco, Bruno and Westerman over several years.

“Fusco himself organized two sit-downs so that the Scibellis could decide ‘beefs’ between Bruno and Fusco. However, after Fusco ascended to power in 2001, Fusco fell into line with Bruno and received proceeds from various extortions even while he was under indictment (in a federal racketeering case brought in Springfield in 2000),” a government motion reads.

The extortions were leveled at Springfield strip-club owner James Santaniello, who is expected to testify in the case, as well as other downtown bars and pizza shops and an Italian food vendor at the Eastern States Exposition, according to prosecutors. Fusco also allegedly squeezed business owners for “Dumpster accounts,” after launching a trash-removal business when he was released from prison in 2006.

Fusco’s lawyer, Richard B. Linds, did not respond to requests for comment.

In 2000, Quincy lawyer George McMahon represented Fusco in a loan-sharking and illegal gambling case in which Fusco ultimately pleaded guilty and received a 33-month prison sentence. It was also a case that yielded what seemed to be the last nail in Bruno’s coffin. Bruno was a powerful, colorful gangster who was killed in a power play spearheaded by Arillotta and fueled by Fusco when he produced documentation that Bruno had in early 2002 complained to a FBI agent Clifford W. Hedges about him at Red Rose Pizzeria.

The meeting was memorialized in Fusco’s sentencing report on the loan sharking case, some believe recklessly and with no thought of protecting Bruno, who has never been identified as an informant for the government in court records or public proceedings.

“It’s not like the old days, Cliff. (Baba Scibelli) should not have done this while I was away,” an excerpt of the conversation reads. “Fusco is a hothead, and I hear some bad tapes have been made of him talking a lot of s***. He is too young and needs to learn how to respect people.”

During the Geases’ trial, Arillotta and Tranghese testified that Fusco became incensed at the reference in his paperwork and marketed it as proof to gangsters here and in New York that Bruno deserved to be taken out. Court records provide no context as to why or how the Hedges-Bruno conversation took place.

Fusco’s lawyer in the 2000 loan-sharking case vehemently denied his client had ties to the Mafia, scoffing at the very idea that the organization was alive and well in Massachusetts and dismissing Fusco’s role as a loan shark.

“We have to beat him up. So, find out where he goes, guy,” Fusco said, according to a transcript of wire-tapped recordings between Fusco and a collector in 1998.

McMahon wrote it off to a federal magistrate judge as “colorful expressions,” and the debate between defense and prosecutors ensued about Fusco’s standing in the Mafia.
Court filings by prosecutors in the pending case state that Fusco boosted his position in the regional mob by getting chummy with Ernest Muscarella, a street boss in New York and member of the family’s so-called ruling panel in the city. Muscarella allegedly put the word out to Nigro that Fusco was dissatisfied with the $2,500 per week which Fusco’s wife was receiving from Springfield gangsters to stay afloat while Fusco was in prison.

The trial is expected to last around two weeks. A final pretrial hearing is scheduled for April 13 and jury selection is set to begin April 16.

Fusco is being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center just across from the courthouse in southern Manhattan.

Crowdfunding is a newly legalized means of collecting small investments from a large number of backers in order to capitalize a new venture.

The Republican / Michael S. GordonApril 6, 2012 - Springfield - Staff photo by Michael S. Gordon - Parker Holcomb, showing his Apple iPhone using the eHighlighter program.

SPRINGFIELD – Parker C. Holcomb has an idea.

It’s called eHighLighter and it is an application, or app in computerspeak, for smartphones. eHighLighter allows students to scan text from books and organize that information, email it and share it with classmates. Students with eHighLighter can even scan the code numbers of the books they use and use that information to create bibliographies and footnotes.

But what Holcomb, a 24-year-old who graduated last spring from Amherst College with a degree in business and evolutionary psychology and lives in Hadley, doesn’t have is the money – he estimates about $100,000, of which he has $50,000 – to bring this idea to market, hopefully by back-to-school time this fall.

, might help, said Scott W. Foster, one of the volunteer board members of Valley Venture Mentors.

Valley Venture Mentors is a local group trying to foster new companies and new ideas in the Pioneer Valley. Just a year old, it has 10 entrepreneurial teams, including Holcomb, and another four teams apply for membership every month, Foster said.

President Barack Obama signed crowdfunding into law Thursday. The bill he signed incorporated elements of two Senate bills, including one introduced by Sen. Scott P. Brown, R-Mass.

Foster, who is a partner in the Springfield law firm Bulkley Richardson and Gelinas, said restrictions on crowdfunding go back to Depression-era Wall Street reforms. The laws were put in place to keep people who are not very rich from investing in the risky investments.

Under the new law, an individual investor can put up to 10 percent of that investor’s income into startups like eHighLighter and Research Habits Digital, the company Holcomb is creating to develop eHighLighter.

“This lets the average investor get a piece of the next Facebook,” Foster said.

Conversely, investors must be careful because they could be buying into the latest Internet bust, Foster said.

That said, instead of a small pool of big-money investors, a visionary like Holcomb will soon be able to solicit smaller investments from a much larger pool of investors, raising the total amount of money available to him and others in his position.

“I believe money will flow into the Pioneer Valley,” Foster said. “There are so many great ideas here.”

But it is hard for people like Holcomb to get the backing they need. Banks don’t loan money for tech startups and traditional venture capital firms are usually looking to make bigger plays, investing at least $500,000 at a whack.

Holcomb started another business his freshman year, All College Inc., that does moving and storage at 14 colleges and boarding schools in New England and New York. So that business is helping bankroll eHighLighter. He’s also got some traditional investors and he’s meeting with others because he doesn’t feel he can wait for crowdfunding regulations to be in place and that funding to become available.

File photo | The Republican

The bank opened in 1852

When the state legislature granted Hampden Bank’s first charter in 1852, lawmakers included the requirement that the bank’s first office be no more than 25 rods from the Western Railroad passenger depot.

That’s 412 feet and 6 inches.

Hampden Bank, known as Hampden Savings Bank until 2003, was founded to serve the needs of railroad workers in much the way workers formed credit unions in later decades, said Glenn S. Welch, president and chief operating officer of Hampden Bank, which celebrates its 160th anniversary Friday.

Each branch will have its own celebrations and customers will be able to enter for a chance to win a special certificate of deposit rate of 1.6 percent, much higher than regular certificate rates.

Hampden Bank’s first office was a rented basement of Agawam National Bank at the corner of Lyman and Main streets in Springfield.

Other offices followed. Today, the bank’s headquarters is at 19 Harrison Ave. in downtown Springfield. Half of Hampden Bank’s home branches are in Springfield.

“We feel we are Springfield’s bank, so right in the heart of Springfield is where we want to be,” Welch said.

Welch, who started his career with the long-gone Bank of New England here, said Hampden Bank was the only bank headquartered in Springfield for a time, until Nuvo Bank & Trust Co. opened in April 2008.

“It’s amazing to think of all the names that have come and gone – Springfield Institution for Savings, Fleet, Shawmut,” Welch said.

Hampden is still here.

“We are gong to continue to be here,” he said. “It is certainly a source of pride.”

Today, Hampden Bank has $568 million in assets and 115 employees, he said. In the past two years, Hampden Bank has opened a new office on Boston Road and renovated its offices in West Springfield and Agawam while expanding its online banking options.

In the wake of last June’s tornadoes, Hampden Bank very quickly donated $100,000 to relief efforts, Welch said. Of that amount, $75,000 went to the American Red Cross and $25,000 went to the Salvation Army.

Then, a few months ago, the bank donated $150,000 to DevelopSpringfield in hopes of supporting long-term rebuilding efforts.

About 20 percent of the 180 state-chartered banks in existence today are 160 years old or older, said Bruce Spitzer, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Bankers Association.

Hampden Bank came along at an interesting time for banking.

“It was before cash as we know it. Banks issued bank notes, the common currency other than gold and silver coins, also known as specie,” Spitzer said. “It wasn’t until the Civil War that currency, or greenbacks, as we know them today, were created and issued by the federal government.”

Bank notes were used for most transactions and were printed and issued by every bank. They had a visible value and a discount value. If a bank or merchant in Boston was unfamiliar with a $20 bank note from Hampden, the Boston institution or merchant could say “I’ll only give you $10 for it,” perhaps perceiving it as risky, Spitzer said.

“This ‘discounting’ the par value of bank notes was pervasive, frustrating many people who lived in the rural areas and even cities like Springfield,” he said. “That all changed after the National Bank Acts of 1863 and 1865 created a unified currency, among other federal controls over the monetary system.”